Gauntlet Dark Legacy

"You've seen this before..."

You see Gauntlet on the shelves, you remember all the fun you had with the originals, you decide to bring it home. It's being run with the huge potential of the PS2, so it should be awesome...but it's not. If you have played the original Gauntlet, then you've played this

Graphics:2/10, Yes, I gave this game a 2, why? Many people are impressed with all the good graphics on the PS2, I am to an extent. I will NOT however, consider what could be done on the PSX good graphics on the PS2, I could run the exact same game on a PSX, with maybe a longer loading and slowdown in some places.

Sound:5/10, Well, standard screams, gluttral taunts, and hacking noises, you've heard all of this before.

Music:6/10, the music is some places is pretty good, at least for this, but is very short(Longest track maybe a minute at the most?) and loops very quickly, getting irritating fast

Storyline:1/10, What? There was a storyline? Oh, yeah you have to get 13 stones and open a portal to save a kingdom that I forget the name of. Standard hack/slash storyline, I wasn't expecting much here, and it lived up to my expectations there.

Characters:N/A, I won't bother talking about history of chracters, or their personality, there is none, so I didn't rate this topic. They are just a bunch of different castes you choose you want to play, no development or anything involved.

Gameplay:4/10, the most defining factor in a hack/slash, is it fun? You need to enjoy mindlessly killing hordes of monsters, it needs to have challenge, and there needs to be some skill involved in it. I really liked this for the first 30 mins, really drew me into it, though there was lots of potential for skill. Then I realize that 5 mins into the game and hours into the game, the only difference is the texture mapping and skins put on the enemies. They are all the same. From your skeletons, to orcs, they have equal power, no different special abilities. You have generators constantly spewing monsters, the larger the generator, the stronger the monster, throw a few bosses in, wait a few months to make it look like thought was put in, release it, and voila, make a quick couple bucks from rental places buying it. It is fun at first, but it is very repetitive, a very common and very bad thing in a hack/slash.

Personal opinion:I'd rate it lower then a 4, but the music just inches it up from a 3...barely, might have been a five if the music wasn't repetitive, hey...maybe's that a hidden theme in the game. Hmmm, repetitive characters, all practically the same, repetitive music, repetitive monsters, repetitive gameplay...I found the theme behind the game! Wow, they really hid that well...kudos on that one.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 06/26/01, Updated 06/26/01